If you do any sort of GIS work, you have almost assuredly come across the company ESRI. This for-profit company is the major-player in the field; a greater presence within GIS programming than Microsoft is in operating systems. However, like the operating systems analogy, ESRI (like Microsoft) has both for-profit and non-profit competitors.
My labmate - ebina2 - recently received an e-mail with some webpages of free/cheaper GIS software. However, since ESRI is the major-player in GIS programs, there is a need to normalize file formats, and I wonder if ESRI has made the Geodatabase file format proprietary, thus making it more difficult for others to import projects made with ArcGIS 8.x and newer.
Anyway, here are the two web pages on which these alternative GIS platforms can be found:
Of course, as with any Open Source and Free programs, debugging and help might be slow in coming. Of course, too, many highly popular Open Source programs have a large cadre of "helping hands" that provide either direct help via debugging or indirect help via forum postings. Remember, though that while these larger and more popular programs might be better-served by the online community, it does not mean that it will be the best for one's particular GIS needs.
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